FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT 2025
DECEMBER 21, 2025
FR. JERRY THOMPSON
ST. JAMES’ CHURCH, FREMONT, NE
St. Joseph has three dreams early on in Matthew’s gospel. In each of them, he receives instructions from an angel of the Lord about how to deal with a certain situation. In the dream we have for this morning, the Lord lets Joseph know what to do when Joseph is confronted with Mary’s pregnancy.
This is a very real issue for Joseph, and his response to the situation is one with which he has to grapple. Joseph and Mary are betrothed. That is, they have agreed to marry
but they have not yet had the marriage ceremony. They are not living together, nor are they having sexual intercourse yet. Still, they are considered as belonging to each other alone. And suddenly Joseph comes to understand that Mary is pregnant. We’re not told how he knows this. Maybe Joseph sees Mary’s protruding abdominal area. Maybe Mary sits him down and tells him, which would have been a conversation in and of itself! Or maybe a beloved auntie says to Joseph, “you know, Joe, I think you better have a conversation with Mary.”
In any case, however it happens, Joseph comes to realize that Mary’s pregnant, and he makes the assumption anyone would make in the situation: Mary’s been fooling around with somebody else on the side. He assumes Mary has been unfaithful to him.
So of course Joseph’s ego is bruised, and surely he wonders about the other guy. But I bet even more than these considerations, he wonders about Mary herself.
We have no reason to think that Mary is the kind of young woman to go stepping out on Joseph; just the opposite, right?
So there must be a lot of heaviness on Joseph’s heart, a lot of confusion in his mind, as he lies down to sleep, to get a break from this troubling reality. As he’s falling asleep,
Joseph prays to the Lord about how to handle this terrible situation, fraught as it is with disappointment for himself and fear and danger and uncertainty for Mary.
Our passage indicates that Joseph has deep care and love for Mary, and that - even in this situation - he wants to care for her however he is able. As he rests his head on the pillow that night, he plans to quietly dismiss her, let her out of the covenant that they have made with each other; and let her out of that covenant without public accusation and shame, without acrimony.
As Joseph drifts off to sleep, he plans to respond with love for Mary, and in his own way,
with love for this unborn child, whoever he belongs to.
Joseph plans to remain faithful to Mary, within the parameters of the situation, even though she, apparently, has not remained faithful to him.
That night as he sleeps, Joseph has a dream. And in his dream, he receives a message from the Lord God, the creator of the universe, the one who quietly and gently touches each of our lives, and he touches our lives more intimately than we know or appreciate
the vast majority of the time.
“Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, Joseph.” Don’t fear that she has been unfaithful and will continue to be unfaithful. Mary has not been. In fact, she has been more faithful than you realize, because she has been faithful to me, the Lord God.
You can trust her, because you can trust me. This child is from me. This child is my doing. This child is from my Holy Spirit. This child is mine, and this child will be yours.
That’s what is implied by Joseph being instructed to name this child, and in so doing,
to claim this child as his own.
But not just any name. Joseph is to give the child, a son, the name of Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins.”
Jesus. It means “the Lord God saves.” This child belongs not just to the Lord God, and not just to Joseph and Mary. Jesus will belong to all the people of Israel, and, ultimately, to the entire human race, even to all of God’s creation, which will be renewed by Jesus’ faithfulness, and by the faithfulness of all those who trust in him.
Being a faithful man, Joseph does what the Lord has commanded, and the story proceeds from there, faithfulness upon faithfulness; the faithfulness of Mary, the faithfulness of Joseph. The faithfulness of Jesus, and the faithfulness of his disciples as they follow him. The faithfulness of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea as they bury him. And the faithfulness of his followers who meet him on the road to Emmaus. The faithfulness of his followers as they go out, preaching the kingdom in his name, calling others more fully into God’s reign.
And ultimately, the faithfulness of you and I as we continue to carry Jesus into a broken world in need of healing, in need of love, in need of the presence of God – with us, and in us, through us, and beyond us.
One of the things that strikes me about this intimate encounter between Joseph and the Lord God is how the Lord moves into Joseph’s life at this critical and vulnerable moment when Joseph is struggling with the situation of Mary’s pregnancy and how he is going to respond to it.
Joseph has already made a tentative plan, which is to dismiss this young woman whom he loves, to separate himself from her.
And the Lord God intervenes. Not in some dramatic fashion, but as the Lord always comes to us, is continuously coming to us – quietly speaking to us and asking us to follow him
Whatever the risks, and whatever the demands, he asks us to trust him, to follow the leading of his Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that brings about this saving reality in the life of Mary and Joseph, in the life of the people of Israel, in the life of the entire world.
The Lord God asks us to listen and to follow, and to be part of the work of healing and of saving that he is continually up to in this fractured human family of ours. He asks us to carry healing and not further fracture into the world around us.
In a personal situation of late, I have been given a considerable gift by a very dear and very close friend. He is a great gift to me, and he has also brought into my life a great gift.
That gift is to remind me that more than one thing can be true at the same time. We can be sad and feel our hearts broken by the fractures in this world and in our own lives - and - at the very same time – we can know immense joy, overwhelming joy, in those very same lives. Both fracture and healing can exist at the same time.
Sometimes one dominates, and at other times the other dominates. But both can be true at the same time. And in fact, they usually are. Last week I attended the funeral of a former Bishop, someone I worked closely with and whom I loved deeply.
Bishop Cate was only 76 when she died, from an unknown but massive event such as a heart attack or stroke. I cried at her funeral because of her loss. Those tears pointed to the great gift she was in my life and in the life of so many others, I experienced deep sadness, and I also knew profound gratitude.
At her funeral, I also reconnected with people I had not seen in twenty years, which was a great, deep joy for which I am profoundly grateful.
Deep sadness and deep joy, and profound gratitude, all of which turned my heart to the source of life, to the Lord God, to the one who loves us with a pure and giving love, always drawing us close, always calling us to be a part of the only life that truly is. his life, life as it is revealed and made flesh in Jesus Christ.
His story is our story from beginning to end, when we listen to the voice of God, and when we follow the dreams he implants in our hearts. Dreams of faithfulness. Dreams of love. Dreams of following. Dreams of serving him and others, of bringing life to them. There will be sadness, even uncertainty at times. And there will be profound joy.
Just as is true for St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Just as is true for Abraham and Sarah, for Isaac and Rebekah, for David and the prophets, and for all the faithful who came before Mary and Joseph.
Just as is true for Jesus and for his disciples, his faithful followers, including you and me.
Just as has always been true for the Lord God himself. Profound sadness and pain, and profound joy and blessing Because God is Love.
Because you and I trust in this wondrous God, we are willing to know all of it, to experience all of it, to risk all of it. And we are willing to join all the faithful, to join them in loving the Lord our God with everything we are, and in loving our neighbor as we love ourselves – sometimes even better!
When it’s easy. And when it’s hard. When it seems like the most natural thing to do and when it challenges all our biases.
Throughout it all, in the paradoxes and uncertainties of life, the Holy Spirit comes to us and enables us to follow the path of God, if we but listen and follow.
Amen.